So Spake Martin

THE WINDS OF WINTER IS NOT FINISHED! 

 

So Spake George R. R. Martin. He published these words just after midnight on Saturday, and the entire internet had heard about it shortly afterward.

Martin revealed that it had been his hope to release the sixth book before of his series before the April premiere of season six of Game of Thrones. The show has already caught up to--and it some cases surpassed--its source material.

"You’re disappointed, and you’re not alone,” he wrote. “My editors and publishers are disappointed, HBO is disappointed, my agents and foreign publishers and translators are disappointed... but no one could possibly be more disappointed than me.” So now that Martin has “shocked” the world with this news, what's next?

This is his "I'm sorry" face.

For those lazy people who only watch Game of Thrones and have never read any of the books, those people who are missing out on the definitive version of the greatest story ever told (most of you), nothing has changed. The Game of Thrones freight train will continue on regardless of its source material, and that's been true for a long time. A Game of Thrones viewer, ignorant of Martin’s wider universe, has no idea where these divergences have occurred, and will not be “spoiled” by the show at all.

The real impact of this news will be felt by the book reader community, who will be faced with a dilemma: Game of Thrones cannot be stopped, and Martin has conceded that yes, parts of his story will be revealed. Probably vast parts. Case in point, Jon Snow is alive, and we will learn how that is possible, probably within the first hour. So the question now becomes, does a book reader watch season six?

My dreams may be dead, but Jon Snow still lives.

This will be a personal decision for every fan, but I will, sadly, be watching. There really is no other choice, and there are two main reasons why.

First, Game of Thrones is the most popular television show on earth, and the idea that anyone could avoid learning the plot of the sixth season until Martin finishes The Winds of Winter is laughable. Not learning the plot of the new Star Wars film for even one week was a challenge. Spoiler etiquette allows only a limited time, perhaps a month, before plot details are considered common knowledge. So to survive between six months and two years (which is reasonable considering the glacial pace of Martin’s craft) without hearing any new plot threads is not possible.

Second, at this point the plot divergences between book and show have reached a such an astounding level that they should be understood as distinct entities. Martin himself points out that a great many characters are dead on the show but alive in the books, and even more never saw the silver screen at all. This Butterfly Effect will make Game of Thrones very different from A Song of Ice and Fire the rest of the way. The only question is how drastic the change will be.

Coming to a bookstore near you... at some point

All of these arguments only grow stronger when the prospect of a seventh (or eighth) book and a seventh (or eighth? ninth? tenth?) season gets added on. Game of Thrones will end before A Song of Ice and Fire, no matter how many seasons of the show there might be. A Dream of Spring, the current title of ASOIAF’s seventh volume, may not see print until 2020 or beyond. Given this timeline, the idea that any book reader could avoid hearing Game of Thrones’ ending is laughable. And even if both the page and screen end in the same place, the manner in which this occurs will surely be drastically different. The effects are only just beginning play out on screen.

Martin loyalists must all come to this sad conclusion. Back in 2011, there was a great hope shared by those happy few who had experienced A Song of Ice and Fire, that a faithful book to screen adaptation of the series could move forward side by side with the release of the final three novels. Fans would see a first rate network like HBO play out our story in a new medium, and millions more people would become familiar with this great work of fiction. Now those dreams must be laid to rest.

Game of Thrones will end before its source material, and as time has gone on, its resemblance to the page has faded. Such is life. In reality, So Spake Martin: “It does not need to be one or the other. You might prefer one over the other, but you can still enjoy the hell out of both." That will be enough.